CRITICISM, BIBLICAL. This phrase is employed in two senses. Some take it to signify not only the restoration of the text of Scripture to its original state, but the principles of inter pretation. This is an extensive application. It is better, perhaps, to confine it to the text of the Bible. We shall limit it to those principles and operations which enable the reader to detect and remove corruptions, to decide on the genuineness of disputed readings, and to obtain as nearly as possible the original words of Scripture. Its legiti mate object is thus to ascertain the purity or cor ruption of the text. It judges whether an altera tion has been made in a passage ; and when it discovers any change, labours to restore the primi tive readings that have been displaced. There are five sources from which biblical criticism derives all its aid, both in detecting the changes made in the original text, and in restoring genuine readings.
1st. MSS. or written copies of the Bible.
2d. Ancient translations into various languages. 3d. The writings and remains of those early ecclesiastical writers who have quoted the Scrip tures.
4thly. Parallels, or repeated passages. • 5thly. Critical conjecture.
Such are the sources which criticism employs. To attain its end it must use them with skill and discrimination. They afford wide scope for acute ness, sobriety, and learning ; and long experience is necessary that they may be used with efficiency and success.
The present article will contain a brief historical sketch of biblical criticism, or a history of the texts of the 0. and N. T.; the condition in which they have been at different periods ; the evidences on which our knoWledge of their purity or corrup tion rests, and the chief attempts that have been made to rectify or emend them. A history of criticism must describe the various stages and forms through which the texts have passed. It will be expedient to reserve an enumeration of the causes which gave rise to various readings to a future article [VARIOUS READINGS] ; and, on the present occasion, to detail the phases which the Hebrew and Greek texts of the 0. and N. T. have presented both in their unprinted and printed state, in connection with the labours of scholars to whom such texts have been an object of interesting attention and diligent inquiry.
We shall commence with the text of the 0. T. There are four marked periods in the history of the Hebrew text.
I. That period in the history of the Imprinted text oellzich preceded the closing of the canon.—Of this we know nothing except what is contained in Scripture itself. The Jews bestowed much care on their sacred books. They were accustomed to hold them in great veneration even in the darkest times of national apostacy from Jehovah. How often the separate books were transcribed, or with what degree of correctness, it is impossible to tell. We cannot suppose that the 0. T. writings were perfectly free from alterations in the earliest times. It is probable that they had been deteriorated even in the interval between their origin and the com pletion of the canon. All analogy confirms this supposition. In favour of it reference may be made to the differences in proper names, and to parallel sections in various hooks. We do not be lieve, however, that the text had suffered much from the carelessness or rashness of transcribers.
It is necessary to examine singly and minutely all parallel places that narrate the same things more or less verbally, before a conclusion be drawn from them as to their original form and relation. They are, indeed, very perplexing in some cases. All the evidence they afford is presumptive. It appears to us that the treatment which the separate books experienced at the hands of the early Jews was favourable on the whole. The Palestinian Jews cannot be accused of reckless caprice or officious meddling in this respect.
The most important thing in this part of the history is the Samaritan recension of the Penta teuch [PENTATEUCH]. This edition (if so it may he called) of the Pentateuch is indeed uncritical in its character. While we freely acquit the yews of tampering with the text of the Mosaic books, the Samaritans cannot be so readily exonerated from the imputation. As far as the latter are con cerned, we are compelled to believe that the words of the original were not always treated by them with sacred respect. Additions, alterations, and transpositions, are very apparent in their copy of the Pentateuch. A close alliance between the text which lies at the basis of the Septuagint Ver sion and that of the Samaritan Pentateuch has been always noticed. Hence some think that they flowed from a common recension. One thing is certain, that the LXX. agree with the Samaritan in about z000 places in opposition to the Jewish text. In other books too of the O. T , besides the five books of Moses, the Seventy follow a re cension of the text considerably different from the Jewish. Thus in Jeremiah and Daniel we find a different arrangement of sections, as well as diver sity in single passages. The books of Job and Proverbs present a similar disarrangement and alteration, which must be attributed in part to the account of the Alexandrian Jews. Far different was the conduct of the Palestinian Jews in the treatment of the sacred books. They were very scrupulous in guarding the text from innovation ; although it is impossible that they could have pre served it from all corruption. But the errors or mistakes which had got into the O. T. text were rectified to a great extent during the time the books were arranged and revised by Ezra, Nehemiah, and their successors. These men endeavoured to make the text as correct as possible. Autographs and the best copies within reach were employed for this purpose. They proceeded, therefore, in much the same way as a critical editor does. But, as they were not infallible, the text of the books they collected was not perfect. All that can be affirmed with safety is, that the canonical writings were in a tolerably pure state about 300 years be fore Christ, at the time of Simon the Just ; who, according to the later Jews, completed the canon. By Eusebius's chronology, Simon died about 292 ; though Zunz makes the date 202. We do not suppose that the canon was fixed by Simon. Hengstenberg and Havernick are undoubtedly wrong in supposing the canon to have been closed about 40o B.C. The books were in the same con dition after 30o B.C., till the time of Christ.